Liberia’s President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf on energy policy

Liberian president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Ellen Johnson Sirleaf recently spoke at the Baker Institute, outlining new policies for Liberia’s nascent oil and gas industry and the strategic implications of the sector’s development in the region.

Sirleaf’s remarks came in the wake of the announcement of a potentially significant oil discovery offshore Liberia, and as her government embarks on an ambitious program to reform the sector after decades of corruption and civil war.

As the first distinguished speaker in the Chevron Excellence in Leadership Energy Lecture Series, a Baker Institute Energy Forum program, Sirleaf highlighted the proposed policy framework recently developed by a committee composed of government ministers, the Environmental Protection Agency and the National Oil Company of Liberia (NOCAL). New legislation will focus on resolving potential conflicts of interest within NOCAL, revising Liberia’s outdated Petroleum Law, creating an indigenous workforce, and setting standards for accountability and corporate social responsibility, the president said.

Sirleaf is a Harvard-trained economist who first took office as Liberia’s president in 2006. She is Africa’s first democratically elected female head of state. In 2010, The Economist named her “the best president the country has ever had.” In 2011, as one of three women jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, Sirleaf was commended for her leadership in promoting economic and social development, peace and women’s rights in Africa. She was inaugurated to her second term of office in January 2012.